Honk if you love peace and quiet

I saw the title of this entry on a billboard recently and chuckled to myself as I thought about the incongruity of it. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it contains an element of truth pertinent to our lives. I hear more and more people talking about how busy their lives are. “I had two meetings this morning, a working lunch, and a mandatory division meeting after work...” You know how it goes. The pace of life seems to quicken with the passing of each year.

Sometimes it is just the nature of our day. You’ve had those “busywork” days when you were active and constantly in motion but got to the end of the day without a lot of concrete results. Even our church life can get crazy. We just finished Mission Conference with its 4 nights in a row of activities. Add Easter; our various small groups throughout the week; a couple of major outreach events; our school’s end of the year schedule and the activities of our young people, and the next couple of months promise to be a blur. And do you remember when summer was “down time?” Those days are gone. Summer camps, mission trips, squeezing in a family “vacation” when we run from activity to activity...

Most of the “stuff” we’re involved in is good. It is even profitable for the kingdom. Still, I feel like I’m cooking up a recipe for “stress soufflé” and “panic pie” just thinking about it. The details of your life are different, but the result is the same. Not much time to sit and recuperate. More importantly, not much time to spend meditating on God and His goodness to us. For that matter, how often do we even stop to remember that it He for whom we live and whom we serve in so many of these things?

Psalm 46 comes to my mind. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

When your life seems like a textbook illustration for those verses, it is important to remember the encouragement of the remainder of the Psalm. It is a challenge to look to the one who never gets stressed. In the midst of all the turmoil and turbulence of life, we can take some time to look to the Lord.

God says it this way: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” It’s almost as if God is saying “relax; I’ve got this under control.” (Psalm 46:10)

Try it. Take 15 minutes, or even half an hour and just be quiet. You’ll have to work hard to find a place in the house where there is no music playing or TV show in the background, but find one. Put aside your PDA, kick your feet up and spend some time in quiet meditation. Spend the time focusing on your relationship with your Heavenly Father. Focus on who He is. Contemplate His thinking about the world and what He wants to accomplish. Whatever “it” is; it’s not out of control, just out of your control.

We live a fast-food lifestyle. We need to learn (by practicing) to spend some time being quiet. I encourage you to put that into practice today.

Revival Fires

We have been talking about revival around our church lately. We have seen a large number of young people in our school make significant faith decisions recently. We also have been thrilled to see a dozen or more people at the front during invitations in the last 2 weeks. Another lady came forward to receive Christ just this last Sunday. In addition to this, I enjoy watching as many people are being strengthened in their faith and growing through recent challenges in their lives. God is at work at Denbigh.

If we really caught a glimpse of what would happen if revival broke out here, I wonder how many of us would be anxious for it to happen. I am sure that we all want to see the fruit of revival. I know we would love to have the sense of God’s presence and power in a fresh way in our ministry. But I wonder if we want to go through what it takes for that to happen.

The series of studies we are involved in during our 50 Day Adventure is really about revival. What would be different if Jesus physically attended our services for 8 Sundays in a row? How would we change if Jesus rode to work with us each morning, or sat at the desk down the hall from us and spent time with us in the break room at work? The impact of this would be so dramatic that everything would change. Our worship services would be different, that’s for sure. But so would our personal lives. There would be a significant change in our personal habits. Those things that are displeasing to the Lord would be radically altered if Jesus were bodily watching over our shoulder at all times. The times that we slack off on things that we should be doing would be far less then they are now. Confession and repentance would be a regular part of our worship experience. Our priorities would likely be very different than they are now. Our prayer life would be far more extensive and effective if we were sitting on the couch across the room from Jesus Himself. Our service for the Lord would no longer be “I have to...” but “I get to...” That friend that I need to share Christ with would be hearing about Him in the very near future.

Is that what you want? Have you invited the Holy Spirit to do spiritual house-cleaning in your life? Are you willing to be transformed? Excitement and enthusiasm in a church can only be maintained long term if the people of God allow this kind of radical transformation to take place in their lives. When we hunger and thirst after the things of God and keep our relationship with Him primary in our lives, we will come together enthused about what He is doing in our lives. We will want to bring our friends with us to that kind of meeting because it is good to watch God work. It’s not a show; it’s a genuine moving of the Spirit of God.
That kind of excitement cannot be manufactured. It also cannot be contained. It’s all a bit disconcerting if you ask me. But I would love to be a part of that, wouldn’t you? It will shake us to our core. It is what God wants for us. The only element left is whether we will come with willing hearts to the Lord of glory and seek Him. Isn’t that what God said to the Israelites? “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)Let’s join together with the Psalmist David when he writes “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

Great things are to come

I just have to write a little about the Spiritual Emphasis Week that we had at our school this week. Our administrator invited Mark Shelley, a youth evangelist from Atlanta, GA to spend 4 days with our young people.

The sessions were full of life (as you'd expect with 350 young people) and God used Mark in a powerful way. He spoke simple messages in ways that grabbed our young people's hearts for God.

When all was said and done, 12 young men and women accepted Jesus as their Savior. 40 committed their lives to the Lord for Christian service. An uncounted number re-dedicated their lives to the Lord. You could sense the moving of the Spirit of God in the place in a way I haven't sensed in quite some time.

I am looking forward to Sunday already as our church begins a new series of studies called "Seeing the Unseen Christ." It is a study that challenges us to think about what would be different if Jesus actually physically attended our services for the next 8 Sundays. Our worship would be different. Our prayer life would be changed. We would have a different attitude toward sin in our lives. So many things would radically change if Jesus came to church with us.

I am really challenged to ask why it would be so different. We all know that Jesus is with us at all times. He promised that. Somehow, though, it just slips our mind. For 50 days our church family will focus on that.

Could it be that the revival that has been taking place this week in our school this week will spill over to the church family as well? O God, let it be so!

You can follow the link if you are interested in learning more about Mark Shelley's ministry.

Resolutions 101

It’s almost a comedy routine waiting to happen: New Year’s Resolutions. Everyone talks about them. Most people make some attempt at them. Lots of us aren’t all that serious about them. It has pretty much become a formality. January 1; make New Years Resolutions; eat one last cookie. Feb. 1; remember New Years Resolutions; go to the gym for the 3rd time. March 1; forget New Years Resolutions; you can lose weight this summer when you are not stuck indoors.

Since it is a new year, and it is a good opportunity to get a fresh run at some specific areas of your life, I would like to suggest that you go ahead with a few resolutions this year. I would also like to offer 4 suggestions that can help you carry on with those resolutions throughout 2008.

Evaluate. Don’t just write down a few things that sound good on paper but that won’t make any real difference in your life this year. Prayerfully determine the things that you believe will make you more effective in your walk with Christ or in your ability to serve Him this year. If you are going to lose weight, don’t just lose weight so that you can look good. Lose weight so you can be healthier and serve God with greater efficiency in 2008.

Clarify. By this I mean be specific. Don’t just say you want to lose weight; specify how much. Don’t just say “I want to exercise more this year;” say how often and for how long each time. Don’t just say you want to “be more faithful;” describe the areas in which you want to change and how you plan to go about it. When our goals are too broad and general, we never really know if we have met them.

Record. Write them down. Put them in a place where you can refer back to them. Tuck them away in your sock drawer or in a file on your computer or stick them on the refrigerator if you really want to be bold. Make it difficult to forget what you resolve to do at the beginning of this year.

Share. Give a copy of your resolutions to a friend. Don’t give them to your spouse or a sibling unless you really want them to keep after you about your goals. Don’t write them for public consumption. Write them so that someone will hold your nose to the grindstone and ask you about them from time to time. I have developed 4 clear resolutions for 2008. I will give them to my accountability partner the next time we meet and I will ask him to check up on me occasionally to see how I am doing. If you are not in an accountability relationship, get in one. Make that your first resolution. We cannot live as islands. Unstated goals too easily get lost in the busy-ness of our lives.

It is my prayer that God will richly bless this year of your life.

Looking Ahead

2008. It hardly seems possible. Time continues to fly by at a maddening pace and we always have more to do than we seem to have time to do it. Still; I'd rather be busy than bored.

Since I took this last week of the year as a week of vacation time, we are going to spend several days just enjoying our family. With 2 of our 4 kids in college, we are learning to treasure all of the time that we have together. A little painting in the kitchen...a little after Christmas shopping...dinner and a movie...a day visiting one of the cool educational or tourist attractions of our area...it's all fun.

I know it is only the day after Christmas, but I am already thinking about what is next. Since I tend to spend the whole month of December preparing for and thinking about Christmas, I am also inclined to think about the new year pretty quickly.

What will this year bring? Last year, I presented the 5 year plan for our church ministry. We are working on moving the ministry ahead and anticipating what God will do through us. Of course, I'd like to see it all happen in the next 2 years rather than 5, but it's very exciting if I can work on the patience issue :-)

I wonder though, about having something similar for my personal life. I wonder how many of us have a "plan" for the future. I'm not talking about our investment plan, or our educational plans. I'm talking about what kind of people we want to be by the end of this year, or in 2 years, or in 5 years. How do I see my life being different? Do I anticipate that my personal ministry will have grown or expanded in any way? That's worth some contemplation. What about that book I've been thinking of writing? How about those trips to visit our missionaries that the mission board is setting money aside for? What does God want to do in my life? That gets pretty exciting too.

I trust that you will enjoy a powerful year of growth in your life. This year will have twists and turns that you don't expect. Some of them will be pleasurable, some will be painful. God anticipates that they will all be used to continue to develop you into the person He wants you to be. Let's head into this year with a great sense of anticipation!

It's CHRISTmas

Well, this isn't particularly profound or anything, but I still like it enough to share with you. A friend of mine sent me this link and I think Mr. Shepard is on target. Enjoy.

"Merry Tossmas"

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

“With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you "Be of good cheer;" it's the most wonderful time of the year.” Eddie Pola and George Wyle wrote the song that those phrases come from.

There are several vantage points that come to my mind as I think about those words. The first is that there are some people for whom this season is anything but cheerful. There are people who experience bouts of depression during the holiday season. Whether it is related to negative memories, or to the realization of some particular loss that they have experienced, they struggle to make it through this season of the year. The “scary ghost stories” do more to describe how they view Christmas.

Another vantage point is all of those many people who find the hectic Christmas season a time to put on a happy face and “survive” it until next year. All of the parties are tiring, the shopping is crowded, there isn’t enough money, etc. They pretend that they are of good cheer, but if one more “friend comes to call” it won’t be “the hap-happiest season of all.”

A third vantage point is those that truly enjoy the season for all of the good, but “additional” reasons to celebrate. These things would include an increased sense of “love;” an opportunity to see family again; the cozy atmosphere that seems to be everywhere. They love the change of pace from their normal routine, even if it is busy. It’s all about the “caroling” and “mistletoeing” and “hearts glowing.”

Whatever your vantage point, I want to remind you that the phrase I began with actually has a Biblical basis. When the angel came to announce the birth of the Christ child, he said “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” We can indeed “be of good cheer” because Christmas celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ to earth. While we may enjoy many other things about Christmas, the thing we celebrate and the thing that will truly bring joy into our hearts this season is the remembrance that we were hopeless and helpless. We were enemies of God. In spite of that, the Lord of the universe stepped out of Heaven, accepted the limitations of human existence and brought God to us. He demonstrated God’s love in the most tangible way possible.

No matter what our vantage point is about Christmas, we can always use a reminder (maybe especially at the beginning of the season) to keep our focus. As with so many other things in the Christian life, it’s all about keeping our eyes on Jesus. Don’t let this season lose its wonder because of the distractions of your life. Maybe this year, Christmas really can be “the most wonderful time of the year.”Have a great season of celebration.